


Blame It On The Mistletoe

by dutchmoxie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Holidays, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 16:23:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2779769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutchmoxie/pseuds/dutchmoxie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke doesn’t wait around for winter, but when it comes around, after everything is said and done… She finally learns what mistletoe can do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blame It On The Mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

> For Bellarke Xmas

She’d heard about Mistletoe back when they were all still on the Ark. It was just another plant mentioned in their Botany classes, and not one she was particularly interested in. Sure, it sounded kind of cool that this plant was mostly linked to the holiday season, and Christmas in particular. But since Christmas was different when there was limited air and food, she never put much stock into the stories of its powers. A plant with the power to make people fall in love? It just sounded stupid to her.

After her father got arrested and she was imprisoned herself, her botany classes almost faded from her mind. She was never going to make use of them anyway - she only had a few months left to live, on a ship that only possessed limited pictures of plants instead of actual physical specimens.

So honestly, what was the point of remembering a plant that had no intrinsic value that she knew of? There was no point in worrying about mistletoe kisses when her life was forfeit.

Even when they, the 100 young criminals sent off to die, landed on the forest ground, stupid mistletoe was the least of her concerns. She had to stay alive, she had to keep her people alive, she had to stay away from Wells until it was too late.

There was no time for a holiday celebration, since they arrived in the warm season and there was doubt that they would even be alive come cold season. Winter was coming, but there was so much to be done.

They were at war with the Grounders - a war that she could not seem to end no matter how hard she and her co-leader tried. Hundreds of people had to die in their man-made fire so that the remaining 82 could survive. She couldn’t let any more of her people die. Not after Wells and Charlotte and Atom… Not after everything that happened.

And then came the Mountain Men and the Ark landed and everything went to shit yet again. She was abandoned by her people - part of her is still so damn angry at Jasper for letting her escape that place by herself. Her boys weren’t there with her, and she held on to her hopes that they were free and whole until she could finally confirm that with her own two eyes.

Raven wasn’t whole when Clarke found her way back to camp, and the anger that surged through her blood at that was never quite given an outlet, because there he was.

Bellamy. Bellamy Blake, her former tormentor and her partner was alive and only a little worse for wear. She hardly even noticed his sister because she was too busy running into the safety of his arms. He pressed a kiss to her hair and she sighed deeply, trying to hold back a torrent of confusing feelings.

Because he was here and he was safe and warm and strong. And it meant that she didn’t have to be alone for the next hard times. They still had 47 people locked up deep inside Mount Weather, and those people deserved their freedom, no matter how much they had tried to deny it.

Octavia, his strong sister, was standing at his side, quipping merrily before Clarke pulled her into a hug as well. She almost didn’t recognize the other girl - Octavia had grown up over the last few weeks.

But there was one person missing, and that was the person who made her have stupid dreams of winter holidays filled with merriment and mistletoe and kisses that were so close to making her toes curl. Finn wasn’t there.

Yes, she was still mad about the way he made her into the other woman - she could never apologize enough to Raven - but these damn feelings were not going away. And even if she didn’t still have feelings of him, it was only normal of her to want him safe. She wanted all of her people safe - and damn what her mother and the other Ark people thought of it.

So she followed Bellamy and Octavia into the wild, shivering slightly because of the ever worsening cold. Yes, the cold season was on its way, and still there was no time to think of holidays and mistletoe. She just had to get her people back - that was her only Christmas wish this year.

They found Finn massacring a small Grounder village, and that’s when she knew that she could never see him that way again. He’d done it all for her, he’d said, and just the memory of that carnage and it being her fault… She lost the contents of her stomach to the nearby bushes while Octavia held her hair back.

Even Murphy - murdering Murphy - was appalled at what had happened, and with her puking her guts out, it was up to Bellamy to maintain whatever level of peace that was left. There were young boys among the corpses, and elderly people - none of the people were Warriors. An innocent village was slaughtered because of her.

She composed herself, because there was work to be done. While biting back tears, she helped Octavia create makeshift restraints for Finn. He could not be allowed to roam free after leaving a trail of murdered innocents in his wake.

“Clarke,” Finn said, looking so damn pained. “I have your watch. Your father’s watch.”

With the way that Bellamy flinched at that, she knew that there were more atrocities to be uncovered there. It was the final nail in Finn’s coffin. Sure, she did not want to watch him shot down under Ark law, but this could not be pardoned. This could never be pardoned.

Her father’s watch in trembling hands, she sat with Bellamy outside the chancellor’s tent and waited for the verdict. They were not allowed to have a say in this - Jaha’s pardon of Bellamy meant nothing to them and Clarke was deemed too young. After all this, her mother still thought of her as the relatively innocent child she had sent to the ground to die.

“You know that they will pardon him,” Bellamy’s voice rumbled. “They still think that all Grounders are irrevocably evil. We know that’s not true.”

Thoughts of Lincoln filled their heads - she could see it on his face. The man who had helped them, saved them even when they had committed atrocities against him. The man who’d most likely been killed by the Mountain Men.

The verdict came and she could see on her mother’s face that Bellamy had been right. Finn tried to approach her, tried to thank her for his freedom. She stepped away.

“Don’t,” she shook her head. “You went too far. You killed innocents. These people were not warriors, Finn. I told them to lock you up.”

Finn wore a look of betrayal on his face that could not be justified. How could he think that she could ever be okay with what he had done? Bellamy had told her about the unarmed man shot in the head for daring to possess a watch that had once belonged to Jake Griffin. God forbid Finn had believed the man. Because once her life was on the line, Finn’s sense of right and wrong went out the metaphorical window.

“But I did this for you,” Finn reached out yet again. “I did it to save you.”

“I saved myself,” she held her head high with Bellamy’s silent support.

She found her way out of Mount Weather and saved Anya and Anya saved her right back - only to die on the cusp of peace between their people. Could there ever be hope of peace after Finn’s crimes?

That was why she could no longer speak with him, no matter how he tried. That was why it was easy to follow Bellamy - if she were to follow anyone anywhere, it would be him - to the old dropship.

Seeing Lincoln tied up - it was so similar to weeks/months ago, back when they still believed that Grounders were nothing but evil. This time, perhaps they could do better. Perhaps they could actually help him this time around.

But there was never enough time, and even though she knew that Bellamy and Octavia could handle the almost feral Lincoln - he was practically a Reaper, even with their attempts to save him - she worried about them when she was called in to negotiate peace with the new Commander of the Grounders, a young woman named Lexa.

The other woman might have appeared young and small, but she exuded a kind of confidence that Clarke could not help but aspire to in her own leadings. She respected Lexa almost immediately, even though their goals were so very contrary.

Clarke’s own atrocities followed her to the tent, and while her murder of roughly three-hundred Grounders was committed in order to save her people, she still carried guilt over it. She tried to make the Grounders understand that they would have done the same if the positions had been reversed, but the message was not accepted that easily.

But Lincoln turned out to be just what she needed to change the tides. She could show the Grounders a way to save their people from the Reapers - and then they would march with them against Mount Weather. Both Sky People and Grounders had prisoners in that mountain, and neither group would allow that to go on for much longer. Something had to be done. They would help them escape. She would get her people back.

After a few tense moments - Bellamy having her back as usual - Lincoln came back with heaving breaths and Octavia’s tears drowning his ragged clothing. Yes, they had found a way. Together with her mother and the Blake siblings, she had saved this man. Maybe that could make up for some of the horrors she had committed.

Peace appeared to be in her grasp - but Commander Lexa had one final condition.

The only reason she was hesitant to hand Finn over to these people was because she still could not bear to see him murdered. She would accept him being jailed, and he owed these people a serious punishment. But she did not want more death. Nothing improved with more death.

“You may use him as you wish,” she sighed as she turned Finn into an object for these people’s revenge. “I only wish for you not to kill him.”

They almost laughed her out of that tent. How dare she ask that of them when Finn had no compulsions about taking lives himself? She argued about Finn for hours, but what finally made Commander Lexa accept her offer is that Clarke offered to heal all the Grounders she could when they got them out of Mount Weather. She would be their temporary healer, because only she and her mother could make Reapers human again. And the Grounders needed their people back.

“I will go with you,” Bellamy was not going to let her go alone. “Call me your assistant, or your guard, I don’t mind. But I will go with you.”

She just nodded, because there were other things to worry about now that it was finally time to free their people. They would have this fight again when their people were free.

And they did. On a cold winter night, the army of Grounders and Sky People attacked Mount Weather. Clarke wished she could say it was an easy battle without many victims on their side, but for such a terrified race the Mountain people sure put up a fight. Jasper is barely breathing when they finally get him out, and Bellamy is trying to hold the gaping wound on his abdomen together. But that’s nothing compared to Finn.

See, he was allowed to go on this mission. The Grounders thought it was fair if he got hurt in the battle to save the people he tried to kill before. She could not blame them - but she did blame the Mountain Men for cutting him down and making sure Finn never saw the sky again. She wanted to weep and scream, but there was just no time. There were too many wounded people begging for her assistance. She had to abandon the thoughts of the mistletoe kisses she’d never have and the cold Christmas ahead. That was for later.

Her mother was bent over Jasper’s body, instructing a mostly unharmed Monty to hold him down while Abby checked to see if he might be bleeding internally. And Clarke, she pushed Bellamy down onto the nearest flat and sterile surface, keeping pressure on that wound the whole time.

“What did you do to yourself?” she immediately started to argue with him.

“The Mountain Men really didn’t like me,” Bellamy quipped, hands drenched in blood.

She was not allowed to think about anything other than fixing him in whatever way she could - any personal feelings for Bellamy would have to be pushed down a little while longer. That could wait until after - when he was whole again.

Primitive battlefield stitchings had to keep his wound together, all the while Bellamy rambled about how he never would have lived through it without Octavia, and without Miller, and especially not without Finn.

But there was no time to think about that - Bellamy was not the only person who needed her to stay on her feet. There were plenty of grounders who desperately needed healing. And she made a promise that had to be kept, even now that Finn wasn’t… He wasn’t anymore.

Hours later, many hours later, she was dead on her feet. She crashed after treating her final patient, curling up in the medical tent without even attempting to find a proper place to rest. She just fell down on the floor somewhere close to Bellamy, trying to keep an eye on him even in sleep. He would heal, she knew that - his stubbornness wouldn’t allow for any other outcome.

Clarke woke up weeping, stifling her sobs after dreams of a screaming Harper and a dying Finn and of branches of mistletoe hanging over a bloody battlefield. She took deep, heaving breaths, trying to stay quiet enough so that no one would see the Doc losing it. No one was allowed to see that - she had to be solid, she had to be the leader now that Bellamy was doped up and stitched up.

“Clarke,” she heard his whisper. “I know it’s you.”

She wiped halfheartedly at the tear tracks on her cheeks before she got up to stand at his bedside. He was probably in pain. He needed his doctor, not the mess.

“Are you in any pain?” she put on her most professional voice.

“Not right now,” his grin was damn adorable, actually. “You definitely gave me the good stuff. But you’re in pain. And it’s my fault. I’m sorry I couldn’t save Finn. And Harper. And little Jack. And Charlotte and Wells and…”

Stoned Bellamy was guilty Bellamy, apparently.

“You’re an idiot,” she sighed, her voice breaking on the words. “It’s not your fault.”

Harper was gone before they even got here. It is hard to even contemplate that they could have saved her if only they’d gotten there sooner. If only Finn...

“If it’s not my fault then it’s not yours either,” his drugged logic actually made sense - damn him.

The first time she let him go outside it was obvious that winter was right around the corner. They had missed most of the preparation, caught up in the medical tent. But Monty, Miller, Raven, and Octavia had led their camp in building cabins and creating homes for the teens who did not wish to be a part of camp Jaha.

There were a few kids who just wanted to be with their parents again, but most of her kids, her people, stayed where they belonged: with their new family. They were no longer the 100, or even the 82 or the 47 - but they were still a family. And family spent the holidays together, with Christmas presents and Monty’s attempt at eggnog and more warmth than they could possibly need or want. And with Bellamy’s hand held firmly in hers - a habit she was not going to discourage, because she’d finally had time to consider her feelings. She was not going to lose him again.

And then, on the day they calculated as Christmas Day, she saw her first real-life branch of mistletoe. She almost didn’t recognize it at first - it was different from what she’d seen in her botany books. Radiation had done the plant some favors, because it seemed brighter than it had back on the Ark.

It seemed as if she was the only one to notice it, but that was impossible. Someone had found it and hung it over the entrance to Bellamy’s new cabin. She was sure Octavia and/or Raven had something to do with that, after the whispering Clarke had noticed whenever she and Bellamy had walked around the camp area - he was almost back to full strength, but he still appreciated her presence by his side.

“Very subtle,” she remarked to Octavia when the other girl handed her a cup of eggnog.

“You two are trying my patience,” Octavia was grinning merrily, on her third - or was it fourth - cup of eggnog. “Lincoln agrees with me.”

Of course Lincoln agreed - the man was happily in love once again, and finally accepted by both his own clan and the remains of the 100. It was almost sickening to see them together - and that had nothing to do with jealousy. Nothing whatsoever. And even if it did, it did not have anything to do with the fact that she maybe might have started to have feelings for Bellamy Blake.

Wait, that was not right. It was more like… The feelings had been there for a while, she just hadn’t realized that they’d slowly started to take a turn for the romantic recently.

“Oh there he is now,” Octavia nudged her in Bellamy’s direction.

He looked well, she noticed that immediately. His cheeks were glowing - telling that he’d been handed a cup of eggnog just as she had been. Only he hadn’t dawdled with it as much as she had. While her cup was still full, Bellamy had an empty cup practically dangling from his long fingers. He was smiling - that was the most striking thing about him.

It seemed as if they rarely smiled these days. They both carried the weight of their lost friends on their shoulders. Others were already moving on, but the leaders of the group were unable to do so. Bellamy was resuming his role as a camp guard as well, even though she had cautioned against straining himself too much. He seemed to have grasped that she’d grown more protective of him in the wake of the attack on Mount Weather, and while he occasionally outright defied her, he humored her most of the time.

“Merry Christmas, Clarke,” Bellamy smiled.

“Merry Christmas, Bellamy,” she felt herself smile in return - how could she not?

Things appeared to be getting better. Their camp was prospering, and their peace with the Grounders actually endured. For now, there was nothing stopping her from going on a limb and asking Bellamy if he might consider this romance thing.

Nothing but her pride. And she was quite attached to that. Too attached, probably. Because even though it wouldn’t take much, and even though it was possible to just blame it on the mistletoe, that final step felt like one step too far.

“Oh, look, it’s mistletoe,” Octavia gave them both a push.

Of course she pushed them right underneath the damn mistletoe. They were only feet from Bellamy’s warm cabin, which would give them a private place to deal with the consequences of an unexpected mistletoe kiss. There were always consequences to something like this.

“You’re so subtle, O,” Bellamy was actually blushing.

“You’re welcome, Bell,” the drunk girl sauntered back to her boyfriend.

Clarke placed one hand on Bellamy’s shoulder - for support only - and looked up at the cleverly placed branch of mistletoe. Now that she had finally seen it, she wished that the stories she had been told about its powers were true. She wished that this plant actually revealed love, or that it created love from nothing. While she knew that Bellamy cared for her, she had no doubt that there was no secret love hidden in his heart.

There was no magic in mistletoe.

But then, Bellamy’s long fingers caressed her cheek, and she felt the heat starting to flood her body. She looked down from that damn plant and into his dark eyes. And she fell a little more in love with him when their lips touched under the mistletoe.

After that, the power of mistletoe became a touchstone in their lives. While there was no true magic to the plant - it merely helped people who were too scared to make a move on their own - there was something special about it.

And years later, when she was once again faced with botany books about that same plant, that’s what she told the children. That while the plant could never make anyone do things that they did not want to do, it still had some magic powers.

“How else did you think Uncle Bellamy got lucky enough to marry me?” she quipped, looking at her husband lovingly.

As the children stared back and forth between the picture and the physical plant, her dorky husband picked up a branch and held it over his head.

“What were you saying just now?” he teased.

She laughed as she pushed him outside into the winter snow, still holding the branch of mistletoe. 


End file.
